I Samuel 15:34-16:13 I Samuel 17:57-18:16
There’s a lot that can’t be explained in this story of the
beginning of David’s reign starting with the fact that David was chosen to
begin with. Saul had not been chosen by
the people or even by Samuel after all.
He had been chosen by YHWH and anointed with oil and the Spirit to lead
the people, … and he had been
successful! He had returned the Ark of
the Covenant to its rightly place, driven off at least three invasions, and
reestablished the original borders of the Promised Land. Israel had once again become a force to be
reckoned with, and other nations feared Saul’s army and the might of YHWH that
stood behind it. The only “mistake” that
Saul had made was that he and the people failed to completely exterminate one
of their oldest enemies. For that
“transgression” Saul was rejected as king, and YHWH set about choosing his …
unexpected successor.
And David was a strange choice in and of himself. He came from a questionable lineage that
included prostitutes, foreigners, and failures – no wealth or standing, no
great deeds or faithful works to recommend him.
On top of that, he was not just the youngest in his family. (God does seem to make a habit of choosing
little children to lead us, doesn’t she?)
David was the eighth
son, the one who was still too young to have taken up any responsibilities in
the household proper – a child whose experience as a shepherd would hardly make
him fit to rule a nation according to any human calculus imaginable. Yet, it was David who was chosen.
Then, once David had been anointed (in a small private
ceremony), … nothing happens … at least nothing spectacular. “The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon
him” of course, but he did not rise up and take control of the nation as one
might expect from the Lord’s anointed.
Instead, life went on as usual.
David went back to the sheep, and Saul went on leading the people to
victory … at least until he came up Philistines and their champion, Goliath.
We didn’t hear that part of the story this morning, but you
all probably remember how there was no one among Israel’s soldiers who was
willing to go out and meet the challenge of Goliath. David was still too young to be part of the
fighting, though. He was just bringing
some food for his older brothers when he overheard the challenge, accepted it,
somehow managed to defeat the Philistine champion with one sling pebble to the
temple, and began the route of the Philistines.
On the way home, the people sang songs celebrating their
king’s victory and the might of their army.
(The words of their song, by the way, were not exact. Saul’s “thousands” and David’s “ten
thousands” were more like Saul’s “many” and David’s “a lot”). For some reason, that did not make Saul happy
though there was enough admiration to go around. Instead, he became suspicious of David,
trying the very next day to kill him with a spear not once but twice. Trying … and failing though he was an
accomplished warrior and there was no place in the room for David to hide.
It takes no great imagination,
while considering Saul or David, to find our life peopled with Jonathan … and
singing women and ruthless spears and applauding crowds. We draw very close to the narrative and we
participate. When we do draw close,
criticism is overcome and the text narrates for us another world, a world in
which love is possible and hatred goes crazy, in which success is rampant and
the king fails, in which Yahweh is present in transformative ways. David’s world is rich with people. In our retelling
of David’s story and David’s world, “our story” is repeopled…. When these
stories are absent from our experience, everything is likely to be
“explained.” But then noticing is not
possible: thrones are never risked, songs are never sung, [slings are never
spun], … names are never precious. When
everything is “explained” life is denied and no new life is imaginable.[2]
What that means in a nutshell is that a world with wonder is
a world without imagination, and without imagination, we cannot envision
anything different than we have. If
everything can be explained than we live in a world of simple cause and
effect. The better you understand the
world, the better you can plan for the future because always know what will
happen next. That may seem like a good
thing at first, but without room for the unexpected, there can be no hope for
change because life becomes like a machine that just keeps working the same way
day in and day out.
Of course, everyone – the
father, the son, and the audience all knew that the tall tales of witches,
giants, and dwarves were fantasy, but as the son listened again to the stories
– lived alongside his father as he
relived his own life in story – Ed Jr. finally began to understand some
of the deeper truths about his father’s greatness as well as his
weaknesses. Then, as his father’s life
came to an end and he met some of the people who inspired the stories, he came
to understand something else as well.
His father was neither a pathological liar nor ashamed of his past. He had just been using his imagination to
open new possibilities for the future by reinterpreting and embellishing the
past.
I think that may be what’s going on in these stories of
David rise to the throne. Some scholars
believe that the strange and miraculous stories we find here can be explained
as an attempt to prove that David was not a deserter or a usurper, and that may
be part of the truth. But I think that
this is history – history
re-envisioned … history retold as story not just because it was an embarrassing
episode or to make it more interesting, but history embellished and elaborated
in order to bring out deeper truth and shape hope for a different future.
Both Saul and
David had their strengths and their weaknesses (and you may hear more about
David’s failings next week), and the stories celebrate the good points as well
as highlighting the bad. But, the big
difference between David and Saul – the deeper truth that the authors are
trying to show – is that David had an abiding faith in the power and wisdom of
YHWH. Where Saul’s successes led him to
believe in his own wisdom and the power of his armies, David relied on the
strength and protection of God. David
trusted that YHWH would be the decisive force in his world and that whatever
happened – triumph or defeat – was in God’s hands.
Carrie and I have recently been watching “Glee.” We’re only in the middle of the second
season. So, you may be a good deal
farther along in the storyline of these High School students with exceptional
voices. But through the “magic” of
Netflix, we can follow the story without all the interruptions … and without
having to wait for weeks at a time until the next installment comes
along…. Ah… technology.
In the latest episode, we found out that one of the girls
still believed in Santa Claus (quite an accomplishment for a teen-ager). And the Glee Club goes to great lengths to
insure that she holds on to that belief because they all remember the sense of
childish, magical wonder they used to have at Christmas, and they want to
protect her faith, protect and preserve it. And, somehow they manage to do
it. They manage to pull off a Christmas
“miracle.”
I hope so. I hope we
all find that faith within us … because only that kind of inexplicable trust
can give us the courage to stand up to the evil and intimidation that the faces
us across the “battlefields” of our world.
That kind of belief and the
sense of wonder it gives can change the world, and in God’s story the future is
filled with the promise of hope and salvation for our world … for us … for all
of God’s children.
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